


Disaster Ever After

by VJR22_6



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, also idk how to tag it but lp bandages drake's wounds, also this is based on a fanart comic!!! i'll link it in the notes., post-impossibin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VJR22_6/pseuds/VJR22_6
Summary: Amidst the aftermath of Steelbeak stealing the Solego plans, Drake grapples with his feelings for Launchpad and trying to express his worry that LP just isn't safe driving so much on such little sleep.
Relationships: Drake Mallard & Gosalyn Mallard, Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack
Comments: 12
Kudos: 137





	Disaster Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again!!!
> 
> The title is a line from "Ever After" by Marianas Trench. Also, this fic is based on a comic by @duckrights over on Tumblr! If you haven't seen it yet, you can find it here: https://duckrights.tumblr.com/post /632600254623170560 
> 
> As always, if you like this please leave a comment!

“Some bruiser with a steel beak. Didn’t catch his name. Stole the Solego circuit plans.”

Darkwing frowns, peering at his compact mirror. He stuck band-aids over what he could, but the side of his mask is scuffed up and he’s got a swollen eye. He looks… well, he looks like shit. He’s not gonna be getting any of his already infrequent acting gigs looking like this. The hero work’s gonna have to be enough to provide for Gosalyn and himself for a whi—oh, no. Gos.

As soon as he’s finished relaying his message to Scrooge he dials LP, crossing his fingers in a hope that they’re not driving. Launchpad isn’t always the sharpest crayon in the box, and while his blunders might be cute sometimes, DW is constantly terrified of him getting in a wreck.

Especially if that wreck involves one, his newfound crime-fighting team—family, LP would correct him if he were here—and two, his motorcycle. He relies pretty heavily on the Ratcatcher for patrol, not to mention any errands he might need to make while trying to make a newly-orphaned teenager feel at home in a bridge tower.

Man, everything in his life is weird right now.

Launchpad doesn’t pick up the first time DW dials him, simply ringing for a long minute before playing LP’s recorded message. Instead of waiting for the tone, he just tries again, his free hand shaking too much to hold the mirror. It comes clattering down onto the keyboard, though it isn’t heavy enough to press any of the buttons.

“They’re fine,” WANDA reassures, in her own monotone way. “If anything _had_ happened, they would’ve called you by now.”

“Yeah, unless it was so bad they _couldn’t_!” Darkwing retorts, pulling his mask off while the phone rings, answerless again. His heart is racing and he’s not sure if it’ll ever stop.

WANDA chirps, which Drake’s come to know as the robot version of clicking her tongue. “They went out to grab dinner, and they’ll be back with it in just a few minutes. You worry too much.”

“Someone broke into my _secret_ hideout. I haven’t even told _Fenton_ where we are right now and he calls me at least every few nights to talk about hero stuff! And the only thing they took were the plans to the circuit that Gos’s grandpa built, so of course I’m worried! She could be in danger right now or worse!” Drake yells, and his voice echoes around the empty room. It’s haunting how shrill it is when he gets… emotional, especially after all the work he put into training it to be deeper.

He feels sick to the pit of his stomach and his heart is still going far too fast.

He tries Launchpad’s phone one more time. This time, after an agonizingly long moment of silence, the line crackles to life.

“Hey, Da—Drake!” Gosalyn’s bright voice answers. “Launchpad had to take a call from his boss or whoever, so he missed yours, and now he’s driving, so I took the phone from him. What’s up?”

“Oh, I—” Drake releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “I had a bit of a… well, let’s say a fight with a criminal.”

“Aw, man. We missed the whole thing?”

“Heh, yeah. Sorry, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” she retorts, and then a rustling sound comes through the phone. “Just for that I’m stealing some of your fries.”

“A penalty I’m willing to pay,” he smiles, grateful she can’t see him shaking even though now it’s in relief rather than tension. “Are you guys almost back?”

“Yeah.” It’s obvious her mouth is full. “We’re like, maybe five minutes at most.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you guys the rest when you get back, then?”

“Sounds good. See you soon!”

In the half-second before she hangs up, Launchpad’s muffled yell comes through. “See you soon, Drake!”

He hangs up with a growing smile and burning cheek feathers. Ugh. Launchpad is so… he’s so unapologetically _Launchpad_ it hurts sometimes. Drake runs a hand through his hair, sighing, and leans back in his chair.

WANDA, thankfully, doesn’t comment on the obvious redness of his cheeks, and his teammates get back moments later, so his frantic wait comes to an end. They park the Ratcatcher, Gos jumps out of the sidecar, and Launchpad… Launchpad has a face dark as a thundercloud, and Drake’s suit is irreparably ripped up. It takes only one look for them both to realize just how much is wrong.

“Gosalyn, why don’t you take the food over to the TV and we can watch something together? I’m gonna go take care of something real quick first.” LP herds her off without looking away from Drake. She doesn’t seem to notice, entirely engrossed in her phone and the cup of soda she’s sipping.

With Gos occupied—and safe—Drake can finally head upstairs, where he’d set the first aid kit out on the bathroom counter. He sits down, pulling one leg up to his chest, and lets out a breath. His chest fills with air for what feels like the first time in a year, and the tension in his shoulders begins to melt away.

Launchpad joins him after a brief moment, closing the door behind him. He holds out a small white bundle, cold to the touch. An ice pack.

“Heh, I figured you might want to put that on your eye.”

“Is it that bad?” Drake grins lopsidedly, taking the pack and willing his hand not to visibly quiver. “It doesn’t hurt much anymore.”

“I think you’ll be okay. You _do_ heal pretty fast.”

Launchpad reaches for the disinfectant and begins cleaning up a scrape on one of Drake’s legs. It stings, but he tries to focus elsewhere.

“That guy… he was huge, LP. Bigger than you are.”

“Yeah?” Launchpad reaches for the gauze, not looking up. “Doesn’t sound like fun.”

“It wasn’t. White suit, like a gangster or something. Talked like he wanted to seem smart but really probably thought the Earth is flat. Big steel beak he kept snapping at me.”

“He sounds familiar,” LP confesses. “Might’ve met him on an adventure before.”

“Maybe you did. He doesn’t seem like the kinda guy to learn his lesson after a fight.”

“Neither are you,” Launchpad teases gently, reaching for Drake’s hand. He holds it out, feeling a smile blossom across his cheeks. He’s still a bit rattled, still thinking about how wrong things might have gone if Gosalyn were here, but….

Launchpad’s so close. His eyes, darkened with concern, are focused on cleaning up and bandaging Drake’s scrapes and scratches. Drake wants nothing more than to pull him close and hold him and reassure him they’ll survive, somehow. In another life, maybe he would.

But he’s terrified of messing up what they’ve got.

Besides, there’s more important things to worry about right now. He swallows the nervousness and breathes deeply to fight the growing redness in his cheeks, again, and returns to the many things more important than his dumb feelings.

“He took the Solego plans.”

 _That_ draws LP’s attention away from Drake’s wounds. “What?”

“He took the plans. That was the only thing he wanted. I—I don’t know how I’m gonna tell Gosalyn. I think if she were here he might’ve tried to take her too. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything to her.”

“Oh, Drake….”

“It was FOWL, wasn’t it? The guys that hired Bulba to figure the circuit out? I mean, who else would want them?”

“Yeah,” Launchpad replies, now reaching for Drake’s beak to clean the wounds there. “That’s what Mr. McDee called about. They’re trying to get all of these mystery treasures together.”

“That can’t be g—shh.” Drake hisses as the disinfectant touches the scratches on his beak. It shatters his focus, though the pain soon vanishes. But now he can’t think about anything but the lack of space between them. LP’s kneeling, reaching out to tend to Drake very, very gently. The bathroom isn’t big, but Launchpad’s broad shoulders and chest are, and because of it, the air is full of something electric.

Drake does his best to look away, doing all he can to avoid getting sweaty palms and butterflies in his stomach. Launchpad’s pulling away the hastily-applied band-aids, gingerly cleaning the scratches underneath. The tenderness of it is newborn, his worry obvious in his actions. It’s almost frightening to Drake how gentle he’s being.

LP’s patched him up before. After the invasion he all but saved Drake’s life by taking care of him. But now that they’re… working together, now that they're partners and they’re building this “adventure family” with something unspoken in-between them, it feels... stronger.

Drake is usually so loud, so dramatic, so _much_ , but with LP, he never feels like he has to be. He can just sit here, and it feels like he’s enough at last. LP reaches for his hand, gently pulling the ice pack away from Drake’s face, and as he assesses the damage, their eyes meet.

There’s almost no distance between them, and in this one breathless glance Drake realizes there’s speckles of soft gray and gold in the deep blue of Launchpad’s eyes. They look like the sky just before dusk, dark but still so beautifully brilliant, and Drake suddenly understands why Launchpad likes to fly so much. He would never want to leave the air if he could be surrounded by something just like this.

Launchpad smiles briefly as their eyes meet, and Drake feels warm from the inside out. LP reaches for Drake’s cheek feathers, running his fingers through them to neaten where they were ruffled in the fight. His heart is going to burn him up from the inside, he thinks, tilting his head ever-so-slightly into the touch.

“I think you’ll be okay by morning,” Launchpad murmurs absently. “As long as you take it easy when I’m not here to keep you—”

“You guys are taking _forever_! If you don’t hurry up, I’m gonna eat your food too!”

Gosalyn’s yell echoes as it travels upstairs and into the tiny bathroom, and both of them startle like deer at the sudden sound. Right, they’re supposed to be taking care of their charge. Launchpad looks away quickly, and gets up to leave with a smile, and Drake can’t tell whether it’s about the two of them or their girl.

“Just a second, Gosaroonie!”

The tension melts away easily, but Drake still feels shaky when he gets to his feet, and it’s not because of his injuries.

Gos yells back about Launchpad’s nickname choice, and Drake doesn’t pay attention to their conversation. He just packs up the rest of the first aid stuff, taking note of what needs replacing, and tries to breathe until his spinning head stops. He puts on a new mask, too, again trying to conceal what he can. Then, he heads for the living room, trying to forget his feelings in favor of sitting down beside Gos on the couch.

“Man, you really got beat up, huh?” She takes a bite of her burger, gesturing to his ripped costume and all the bandages. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” he says, as sarcastically as he can. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. Or curse.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re not in charge of me.”

He gives her a gentle push to the shoulder, reaching for his food. She shoves him back with a playful laugh, then settles into the corner of the couch like it’s been her spot all along. He rolls his eyes, but smiles all the same.

Launchpad leans over the back of the couch, holding up a Darkwing tape. “It’s still pretty early, maybe we could watch a few episodes before I’ve got to go?”

“Again?” Gos asks with a raised eyebrow. Drake rolls his eyes at her and looks up at LP, smile unfading.

“That sounds great.”

LP starts the tape where they left off, in the middle of the season, then takes a seat on Drake’s other side. The two of them sing along to the theme and quote scenes just like they always do, and burst out into giggles like girls at a sleepover. LP puts his arm over the back of the couch, and Drake finds himself fitting into the space at Launchpad’s side like a perfect puzzle piece.

Gosalyn huffs about it, making her usual show of disinterest, but Drake catches her more than once looking at the TV with full focus. He doesn’t know how he’s going to tell her her grandpa’s plans were stolen, or that she might be in danger. It’s a problem for another day, he decides, tenderly touching the scrapes on his beak. Today’s been a long one.

It’s time for bed sooner than Drake would like, the room painted in the navy blue of midnight. The tape ends, and Launchpad rewinds it and cleans up the trash from dinner. Drake grabs a blanket, and wraps it around Gos’s shoulders.

“I’m not tired yet,” she murmurs, blinking up at him with obvious sleepiness. Trying to say something with actions instead of words.

“I know.” He sits down beside her. “Do you want me to sing to you again?”

Drake isn’t the best caretaker. She had to teach him her lullaby in the first place, the night after the Ramrod was destroyed. Still, when she responds with a tiny, tiny nod, he forgets about his bruises and band-aids in favor of singing until she starts to drift off.

He holds her until she’s leaning against his chest, breathing slowly and softly. Holds her til he’s sure she’s resting, and watches over her for a moment after he lies her down. He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain the whole FOWL fiasco, or how he’s going to keep her safe in the coming days. But he’s going to do his best.

Once she’s resting, Drake gets up quietly, heading to the nearby windows, where Launchpad is standing. He’s on the phone to someone, chatting quietly about mysteries and adventure, and Drake is reminded of the day’s events yet again.

“—glad you guys are okay,” LP is saying. “We’re all fine, and other than the plans being taken everything here is fine.”

Drake looks out over the city. Things are being rebuilt all around now that Bulba’s behind bars, and the sky’s clear. It’s beautiful, and it really does feel like home. But maybe that’s just because… well.

“Get some rest, okay?” Launchpad asks whoever he’s talking to. One of his Duckberg family, surely.

Drake isn’t jealous, not really. He knows both he and Gosalyn have their places in LP’s heart, same as all the others, and he doesn’t want to ask for more than he has.

Besides, he looks more tired than Drake is, and he didn’t get beat up today. And he has a long drive to get home before he can rest. Poor Launchpad’s been hardly sleeping since taking on nightly trips to St. Canard and Drake knows today’s worries will only worsen that.

Oh, if only he wasn’t so stupid. He could fix all of this if he were to just get over himself and—

“Drake, you okay?”

“Huh?”

Launchpad’s looking him over with that same heavy concern from earlier, having hung up the phone while Drake was fighting with himself.

“Y—yeah, I’m good.” Drake flicks his hand dismissively. “So, uh… everything okay?”

“Oh! Yeah. Uncle McDee just wanted to check on me, you know?” He grins a little, sticking his phone into his pocket. “I think he feels bad about the whole thing with Gos.”

“What makes you say that?”

Launchpad shrugs, turning to look out the window. Drake does the same, and it’s quiet for a long minute.

“I think we’re all just a little scared,” he murmurs, nearly inaudibly. “I’m scared when I leave that you’ll be in a fight and I won’t be here to watch your back, he’s scared he can’t keep me safe if I’m all the way out here, you’re scared you can’t keep Gos safe. But I think it’s going to be okay.”

“I… I wish I could say I think so too.”

It’s all Drake can manage. This is such a _bad_ time to be wanting him to stay. Part of him wants to pull his feathers out, and at the same time another part wants to just fall into those big, strong arms and never ever let Launchpad go. He doesn’t know which is stronger.

“Drake?”

Launchpad’s looking at him again, with that soft frown and furrowed brow. With all the worries in the world on his shoulders.

“Gah! Don’t give me that look, I _know_ that look.” He turns away from the window, putting a hand to his face. His head is starting to spin. “LP, I’m fine. Honest.”

It’s as if his feelings are tied to the ceiling with rope, hanging there and swinging in a breeze full of all that’s going on. And right now, that rope feels like it’s frayed to the point of snapping. But he can’t say—Launchpad’s already got so much happening—he’s still waiting for a response, though—and what if he decides to leave before Drake says anything at all—

Drake turns around, pointing to Launchpad with a shaky hand.

“But if I _was_ worried about you—I… I would tell you how stressful it is that the person I’m in love with makes three-hour drives here and back every day on no sleep.”

Launchpad’s eyes grow wide, and he stops still. Drake’s lungs seemingly forget they need air in them, and the entire Tower is deathly silent.

“...in love with?” Launchpad’s voice is soft and sweet as sugar. His expression shifts, just a bit, but his voice doesn’t lose that gentle edge. “DW, you _like_ me?”

_...Oh._

His heartbeat rushes in his ears, _ba-thump_ , _ba-thump_ , and he feels like he’s just caught on fire. He’s sure his cheek feathers are the color of a setting sun right about now.

“Um,” he closes his eyes and puts his hand to his face again. “I… er… can I just walk you to your car now, and forget this happened?”

Launchpad’s huge, warm hands slipping under his arms startles him to alertness. He looks down as he’s picked up, and he feels every bit like a volcano about to explode. He’s shaking and sweating and… and… and the end of his beak is touching Launchpad’s.

“Drake.”

His voice is firm, not inviting argument, and Drake leans back just a little. This is intimidating and terrifying and he kind of likes it, just a little. His heart is going a million miles an hour.

“You’re telling me….”

Drake is entirely in the air now, held up in Launchpad’s gentle hands. He feels like the whole world might stop spinning.

“—that I could’ve been _dating_ you this whole time?” Launchpad’s suddenly yelling, as if he too has begun to free-fall emotionally. As if there’s nothing to hold either of them back anymore. “I could’ve been Darkwing Duck’s boyfriend. This entire time.”

“Uh… yeah….” Drake practically melts, looking away for a second. His face is warm and he knows if he was on his own two feet he would’ve fallen to the floor right now.

“Well, in that case, maybe I could stay a bit longer.” Launchpad looks away just as Drake looks back at him. His expression is so relaxed, like he’s finally not worried anymore. And Drake doesn’t feel worried either.

He reaches a hand to Launchpad’s face, slowly turning it so they face each other once again. So he can see the sparkle in those blue eyes, finally free of fear because they’re _here_ and that’s all that matters.

“Y’know… ‘Darkwing Duck’s boyfriend’ has a nice ring to it.”

And all of a sudden Launchpad’s kissing him.

When Drake dreamt of this moment, he expected to be scared the whole way down. Like a big auction or beating the biggest baddie in town. But he’s not afraid, not even a little. He just feels appreciated and safe, and like nothing else matters but the fact they’ve finally closed the distance between each other.

He takes Launchpad’s hat off with one hand, and pulls him closer with the other. His fingers tangle in LP’s red hair, smooth as silk, and Drake commits the sweet warmth of it to memory. The way they fit together, as if by design, the beat of their hearts syncing to a steady rhythm. This is his new favorite feeling, being loved.

Gos stirs from her place on the couch, and he knows as soon as she finds out they’re dating she’s going to make fun of them. Right now, he doesn’t quite care. Launchpad’s going to actually rest, and stay with them, and Drake won’t have to be afraid of losing him nearly as often. And maybe because of that, things will be okay.

And if they aren’t, well, he’s ready to get dangerous, so long as Launchpad will be beside him.


End file.
